§ 243 When O. Henry Met the Poet Scout
Bob Davis of Munsey’s Magazine, who has a mania for bringing celebrities together just to see how they react on each other, was strolling along Broadway with O. Henry in the latter hours of the nineteenth century, when Captain Jack Crawford, the poet scout, his hair waving in the wind, came sailing across Madison Square. Davis introduced the pair and dragged them off to lunch.
Captain Jack, like most poets, having memorized all his own verse, never let a chance go by to hold the willing or unwilling listener spellbound. He opened up on the Bagdad Scribe before the oysters arrived. He spilled frontier poetry all over the premises, shook his hair out in a burst of blank verse, wedded the Pecos River to the Rocky Mountains, swept through the Yellowstone, tramped the plains, shot Indians, broke horses and piled the rhythmic dust of pioneer days all over O. Henry.
Captain Jack did all the talking and all the reciting that was done at that luncheon, which lasted two hours. About 3.30 P. M. the party broke up and O. Henry staggered out into the fresh air waving Davis and Crawford a mute farewell.
In the morrow’s mail Bob received the following note:
“My dear Colonel Davis:
“How is your friend Captain Crack Jawford, the go it spout?
“O. Henry.”